I got married 34 years ago, the same year this jeep rolled off the assembly all shiny and new. I don't know much about the history of it as it has only been in the family for about 10 years. I got it from my son who got it from my daughter who purchased it from some guy up north........it sat in my yard as a "future" project for about 5 years. Last spring my son and I decided to put it on the road as an antique because we never seemed to get around to working on the rebuild project.
Spending many joyous hours in this simple jeep last summer and many more fun hours this summer, I have come to the conclusion that I didn't really want a spiffy new jeep after all. I have the up most respect for the character of my jeep.
I suspect, when new it was strong, responsive and quite impressive ..........now it requires a little understanding and is not expected to perform like it once did. There is obvious fatigue in its core structure yet it is still majestic in many ways.
I am proud to drive it as it does not reflect a bad image because of it's age or condition ....instead it invokes an aura of mystical memories of times gone by and happy smiles. Even with age and fatigue, it still trudges along, moving forward and offering much more good times to come.
I suspect there is a lesson to be learned here, as we grow older and our bodies fatigue, of course we can not do things of days gone by, we are not quite as strong or fast, but we can still command a certain amount of
dignity knowing that we are out there and moving forward.
2 comments:
CJ-7? That's a great looking Jeep! Wish they still made them like they did back then. Enjoy!
Right on! Well said. I am in my early 30's and I think about this a lot, the whole maturity thing drives me crazy. Good thing my peak ultra running years are ahead of me. :-) But I do see that connection too, where eventually one realizes that all the short term accomplishments mean little when compared to the accumulated lessons learned on the entire journey.
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